Public Relations Review40 (2014) 420428

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Public Relations Review
Cyber warriors in the Middle East: The case of the Syrian
Electronic Army
Ahmed K. Al-Rawi
Department of Media & Communication, School of History, Culture, & Communication, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 29 January 2014
Received in revised form19 March 2014
Accepted 19 April 2014
Keywords:
Syrian Electronic Army (SEA)
Cyber War
Hacktivism
Syria
Middle East
Political public relations
a b s t r a c t
This paper investigates the online hacking group, the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), and
examines its goals. The study argues that it is not a hacktivist group but is made up of
cyber warriors who are closely connected to the Syrian government in order to serve two
main goals: serving as a public relations tool for the Syrian government to draw the worlds
attention to the ofcial Syrian version of events taking place in the country and countering
the impact of Syrian oppositional groups. The study investigates the online reaction to SEA
by analyzing the comments posted on its YouTube videos in order to better understand the
groups aims and strategies and the public perception.
2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Our grandfathers liberated Syria from colonialism and we, the Syrian Electronic Army, will protect Syria from the
return of colonialism Homeland. . .Honor. . .Loyalty, YouTuber: samisami70835
1. Introduction: the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA)
Established around May 2011, SEA is hacking group that claims to be independent fromthe Syrian government of Bashar
Assad. Its oldwebsite (syrian-es.org/) is not functioning anymore due toUS webservice restrictions (Scharr, 2013). The Syrian
Computer Society, whichwas establishedby Bashar al-Assads brother Bassel in1989 andwas headedlater by Bashar himself
before becoming president, hostedandregisteredSEAs websites whichindirectly showSEAs government afliation(Scharr,
2013). On Instagrampage (instagram.com/ofcial sea/), the rst image that SEA has had was that for Bashar Assad, stating:
Every year and youre the nations leader (as of 9 December 2013), yet on its Twitter page,
1
SEA describes itself as follows:
We are not anofcial side and do not belong to a political party. We are Syrianyouths who responded to the call of duty after
our homeland, Syria, was subjected to cyber attacks. We decided to respond actively under the name of Syrian Electronic
Army SEA (The Syrian Electronic Army, 2013). It seems that the Syrian government felt an urgent need to counter the various
cyber attacks against its websites, so it supported SEA. Aside fromthe hacking operations conducted by Anonymous, which
is one of the well-known hacktivist groups in the world that supported free speech with the release of the Wikileaks cables
and backed other popular protests like Occupy Wall Street, as explained below, other attacks included the email leaks by
Syrian opposition activists who disclosed the emails of Bashar Assad and his close aides and family members which were
E-mail addresses: alrawi@eshcc.eur.nl, ahmed@aalrawi.com
1
SEA has had 484 tweets and 10,183 followers as of 6 January 2014. The rst tweet was sent on 31 July 2013.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.04.005
0363-8111/ 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
A.K. Al-Rawi / Public Relations Review 40 (2014) 420428 421
published by The Guardian (Booth & Mahmood, 2012). Basically, it is impossible for SEA to operate inside the government
controlled areas without the direct knowledge of and direction fromthe totalitarian government of Syria. Currently, SEAs
new website (sea.sy/index/en) is operated from Russia which can be conrmed by the public email used which ends with
.ru. In June 2011, Bashar al-Assad praised some of his supporters and highlighted the hacking operations of SEA, which he
said has been a real army in virtual reality (Scharr, 2013).
According to its website, SEA attributes its existence to the anti-Assad stance taken by many Arab and Western media
channels. SEA claims that these channels started to support terrorists groups that killed civilians and members of the Syr-
ian Arab Army as well as destroying private and public properties. These media outlets functioned as an umbrella for
these groups to continue their acts by ignoring the coverage of terrorism in Syria and accusing the Arab Syrian Army
to be behind everything. . .. (The Syrian Electronic Army, n.d.). It seems that SEAs Facebook page has been routinely
and continuously removed by Facebook administrators (The Syrian Electronic Army, 2013c). On its 252 Facebook page
(facebook.com/SEA.252)
2
that has been removed during the time this study was conducted, SEA wrote in the About sec-
tion, three words to describe the group: Homeland. . .Honor. . .Loyalty which is the same slogan used by Assads Syrian Arab
Army. By closely examining the 253rd Facebook page (facebook.com/SEA.253) that was created on 10 December 10, 2013
and removed shortly afterwards, one could notice that the page was heavily moderated by its creators and it only contained
instructions on where to attack Syrian oppositional groups or report abuse or hate speech to Facebook administrators in
order to shut themdown.
Another Facebook page was created and was called The SEA Fourth Division on 5 December 2013 which has had over
2546 likes in less than ve days (facebook.com/SEA.P.252) and was shortly removed as well. One comment that was posted
on 10 December 2013 mentioned that the Facebook page was being reported as one that violated Facebook guidelines; the
person running the page instructed his followers to like or comment on some of its posts to avoid shutting it down, stating:
Please dont let me down, Shabiha. The term Shabiha is used for the militia members that are afliated with Bashar
Assads regime. Other instructions were directed at hacking Facebook pages or reporting abuse in relation to Facebook
pages that opposed Assad such as Al-Yarmouk Camp (facebook.com/NewsOfYarmouk?fref=ts) and ImamDhahabi Divisions
(facebook.com/kalidbrkat.ahmad.1). Later, SEA announced on its website that its 260th Facebook page was created:
They have been hurt by the blows of the SEA, so they fought us with everything that they have and shut down our
Facebook page hundreds of times. Now, learn and let your masters learn, too. We swear that if you shut us down
millions of times, you will neither affect our determination nor perseverance. This is our arena and you know this
well. Wait for us for you who boast of freedomof speech. We do not need any funding fromany side because there is
only a need to have a computer and an Internet connection
The Syrian Electronic Army (n.d.)
Since it has been involved in a conict for over three years, the Syrian government uses SEA as one if its public relations
tools and cyberspace is just another battleeld. In the following section, an elaboration of the concept of cyber war is given.
2. Cyber war
Information warfare or cyber war is dened as aggressive operations in cyberspace, against military targets, against
a State or its society (Ventre, 2011, p. ix). Many governments around the globe are concerned about their cyber security
and ability to (counter)-attack other adversaries. For example, Wikileaks cables revealed that the US government was pre-
occupied with the growing cyber technologies and capabilities of some countries like China since Japan, its close ally, was
far behind in the cyber war race (Wikileaks, 2009). The US government had also discussion and some kind of cooperation
on cyber security with the Indian government (Wikileaks, 2004). This kind of concern is related to many governments
needs to obtain information that has security, economic, and political signicance as well as to protect vital technology-
related sectors frompotential cyber-attacks which seemto be a regular occurrence. For example, the Algerian government
introduced a newcybercrime bill in May 2008 after reports stating that government websites received about 4000 hacking
attempts per month (International Telecommunication Union, 2012, p. 32). Some of the declassied documents of the US
National Security Agency show that the US government planned to target adversaries computers since the year 1997.
This was known as Computer Network Attack (CNA) which referred to operations to disrupt, deny, degrade or destroy
information in target computers or networks, or the computers and networks themselves (Richelson, 2013, paragraph 4).
Inmany cases, cyber war is envisioned to be part of and an extensionof a classical war. For instance, several hacking attempts
were made against ofcial Iraqi websites before the beginning of the 2003 war which resulted in defacing themand posting
anti-Baathist messages by hackers fromthe USA (Al-Rawi Ahmed, 2012, p. 24 & p. 51). The war also led to various reactions
including the hacking of nearly 20,000 websites between mid-March and mid-April 2003 that were either for or against the
war on Iraq (Rojas, 2003). It is believed that some hacking attempts against government-run websites are either supported,
indirectly encouraged, or at least tolerated by some governments. For example, an FBI informant once instructed some US
hackers like Jeremy Hammond to attack certain targets in countries that were supposed to be allies with the US like Turkey,
Iraq and Brazil (Cameron, 2013).
2
The Facebook page was created on May 12, 2013 and has had 2779 likes.
422 A.K. Al-Rawi / Public Relations Review 40 (2014) 420428
According to the former secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, the US government hacked into websites run by al-Qaidas
afliates in Yemen and changed advertisements that bragged about killing Americans into pro-American advertisements
(Hughes, 2012). In May 2007, a cyber war was initiated in Iraq to ght Iraqi insurgents. According to Bob Gourley, the
chief technology ofcer for the US Defense Intelligence Agency, technology experts conducted reconnaissance on foreign
countries without exchanging salvos of destructive computer commands (Harris, 2009). Yet, Iraqi insurgents themselves
were believed to have hacked the US Predator drone video feed in order to disclose the kind of footage captured (Spillius,
2009), while other sympathizers with the Iraqi insurgency stepped up their war against US websites as a reaction against
the US invasion of Iraq. For instance, the leader of the Tarek Bia Ziad Group, who is believed to be a Libyan hacker, managed
to design a virus that infected many computers in the USA and the hacker attributed his action to his support for the Iraqi
insurgency (Heussner, 2010).
Another recent example of cyber war is between Iran on the one hand and the USA and Israel on the other hand in
relation to the controversial Iranian nuclear energy program. It is believed that the USA in coordination with Israel were
allegedly involved in designing a malware, which is a malicious software, called MiniFlame whose aimis to steal information
fromspecic targets in Iran as well as Lebanon in which Hezbollah operates. This malware has the ability to remotely take
screenshots of infected computers, record audio conversations that took place in the same roomas the computer, intercept
keyboard inputs and wipe data on command (Ferran, 2012). Interestingly, the Flame virus that was created by the US and
Israel was also found in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE that are supposed to be close allies with the US (Flangan,
2012). Further, the US and Israeli governments were allegedly involved in designing Stuxnet 0.5 back in 2005 to attack Irans
Natanz enrichment facility (Arthur, 2013) which was followed by creating the Stuxnet wormthat successfully disrupted and
delayed the work of an Iranian nuclear facility (The Guardian, 2013; Valeriano & Maness, 2012). As a reaction, Iran allegedly
cyber attacked several Persian Gulf oil and gas companies in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, according to US sources (Baldor, 2012).
The latest revelations by the former NSAs contractor, Edward Snowden, showed that the US government allocated a
$652 million budget for conducting 231 offensive cyber-operations worldwide back in 2011 (Gellman & Nakashima, 2011).
Teams fromthe FBI, the CIA and the Cyber Command, the US military cyber operations, worked with the Remote Operations
Center (ROC) to plan, administer, and supervise the work of cyberwarriors whose job was to inltrate and disrupt foreign
computer networks incountries like Iran, NorthKorea, China andRussia (Gellman&Nakashima, 2011). Other tasks included
locating suspected terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, and other extremist safe havens (Gellman &
Nakashima, 2011). Snowdens revelations revealed numerous attempts to hack websites and computer networks in Europe
andthe Middle East including Al Jazeera TVchannels internal communications during George Bushs secondterm(Al Jazeera,
2013). In brief, several governments believe that obtaining sensitive online information fromother countries and countering
cyber attacks are of vital importance to their national security and Assads government is certainly one of them.
3. Hacktivism& the Arab World
The word hacktivism is a combination of the words hacker and activist and was rst coined by D.E. Denning who
makes a distinction between cyberterrorismand hacktivism. Denning states that cyberterrorismrefers to the convergence
of cyberspace and terrorism. It covers politically motivated hacking operations intended to cause grave harmsuch as loss of
life or severe economic damage. An example would be penetrating an air trafc control system and causing two planes to
collide (Denning, 2001, p. 241). On the other hand, hacktivism, refers to operations that use hacking techniques against a
targets Internet sitewiththeintent of disruptingnormal operations but not causingserious damage. Examples arewebsit-ins
andvirtual blockades, automatedemail bombs, web hacks, computer break-ins, andcomputer viruses andworms (Denning,
2001, p. 241). Infact, it is difcult to distinguishbetweenthe two types of activities. The US government, for example, regards
Anonymous as an illegal online organization. According to the US government, Anonymous is made up of not-for-prot
cyber criminals (Snow, 2011) though the group is regarded by many as a hacktivist one. Weimann conrms that the line
between the concepts of cyberterrorismand hacktivismis blurry as it is difcult to dene the action of hacktivists attacking
national infrastructure, such as electric power networks and emergency services (Weimann, 2005, p. 137). Weimann does
acknowledge that cyberterrorismis done if some nation states are involved in hacking acts (Weimann, 2005, p. 141) and
based on Dennings classical denitions, the Stuxnet wormcan be regarded as an act of cyberterrorismsince its aimwas to
cause grave harmsuch as loss of life or severe economic damage.
One of Anonymous famous operations was calledSyria Fighting for Freedomthat resultedinhacking the SyrianCustoms
website (customs.gov.sy) (Anonymous, 2013). The Syrian Electronic Army reacted with hacking a Dutch website afliated
with Anonymous and posted a video to announce it, stating: Our integrity is equivalent to the integrity of our territory. If
you approached us even a little bit then you should await your complete annihilation (YouTube, 2012a). One commentator
on this video, MrKilian555, said: You will pay. Believe me. Expect us! (YouTube, 2012a). As a reaction, Anonymous initiated
operation #OpSyria that allegedly succeeded in exposing the names of ve members of the SEA including, some of whom
live in Romania and Russia and its leader who is known as Deeb (Murphy, 2013).
It is believed that Anonymous has many members from the Arab world. When the organization launched its #OpIsrael
attack in November 2012, it managed to affect about 600 Israeli sites and released personal information that belonged to
high-rankingIsraeli ofcials (TheWire, 2013). Ina newspaper interviewwithanAlgerianmember of Anonymous, herevealed
a combination of nationalistic and religious motives behind the attack on Israeli websites. The Algerian hacker claimed that
their mission was to wipe Israel from the map of cyberspace in 2013 and that details of over 20,000 Facebook and 5000
A.K. Al-Rawi / Public Relations Review 40 (2014) 420428 423
Twitter accounts andabout 30,000 Israeli Bank accounts were releasedto the public in#OpIsrael operation(Budihan, 2013).
In the following section, the theoretical framework is introduced.
In this study, I argue that SEA is not a hacktivist group that defends or ghts for some causes but is a community of
cyber warriors who are dened as people posses[ing] the characteristic of being sponsored by states and being subject to
the oversight of their governments (Baldi, Gelbstein & Kurbalija, 2003, p. 18). The Syrian government uses SEA as a public
relations tool to serve its own interests, while the organizations continuous denial of its strong connection to Assads regime
has three main advantages. First, if SEA fails in its activities such as having its website hacked, no one can announce victory
over the Syrian government but over a small hacking Syrian group. Second, this kind of vague link between the two gives
the Syrian government some protection fromthe legal and political consequences of SEAs attacks (Fire Eye, 2013). Finally,
keeping the link to the Syrian regime ambiguous helps SEAs organization in getting more recruits of the type of script
kiddies or Thrill Seekers who seek fame and do not want to be associated with Assads government but are excited to be
part of a small organization that is sometimes able to attract the worlds attention.
It is important to note that SEA is not only made up of a group of cyber warriors who are supported by and afliated
to the Syrian government, but is also aided by what is called as patriotic hackers (Fire Eye, 2013) and Thrill Seekers
(or cyberjoyriders) (Weimann, 2006, p. 41). In fact, SEA is a highly organized group despite the fact that it claims to
work independently and with no clear organization. There is a well-dened leadership and hierarchy unlike the case of
Anonymous which is made up of loosely connected networks of hackers from all over the world. For example, the TV
channel, Al-Mayadeen, interviewed the leader of SEA on 26 September 2013 (YouTube, 2013c). The head of SEA, who is a
young Syrian man living in Damascus, framed his group as hacktivists who are defending a cause, stating: We have Syrian
members who live outside the country in case the Internet connection is shut down. As an organization, we are proud to
be on the same [FBI terrorist] list with that of the armed wing of Hezbollah (YouTube, 2013c). This is also conrmed by
Anonymous. When it initiated its #OpSyria operation, Anonymous hackers managed to disclose the identity of some SEAs
members living in Romania and Russia and its leader who is nicknamed Deeb (means wolf in Arabic) (Murphy, 2013). Finally,
the pro-Syrian TV channel, Dunya, interviewed on 23 May 2011 a young Syrian man called Tareq who claimed to be the
head of SEA and revealed that the group consists of hackers living inside the country and others in the Diaspora. Tareq
emphasized that some Syrians living abroad are helping with translating the organizations messages in different languages
(YouTube, 2011b). Due to this hierarchical management, I argue that SEA is an organization that clearly exhibits public
relations features serving the Syrian government for two main reasons. First, PR practitioners must ensure their efforts
support and contribute to the overall organizational goals and values. SEA members are performing these services for the
Assad government since they adhere to the same ideological beliefs and showgreat support for its political system. Second,
those practitioners must showcondence of topmanagement inorder torecommendneededadjustments toorganizational
policies and procedures (Freitang & Stokes, 2009, p. 5). Again, SEA members largely act in this manner as the hierarchical
structure is well established and respected.
In relation to its direct connection to the Syrian government, Reporters without Borders identied several countries that
it called Enemies of the Internet including Syria that uses the Syrian Electronic Army as an ofcial intelligence tool. SEA is
known to use malwares to collect information on oppositional groups (Reporters without Borders, 2013). These malware
programs andTrojanapplications include Blackshades, DarkComet, Fynloski, Rbot, Xtreme RAT andZapchast andhave key
logging, document and data stealing, and audio eavesdropping capabilities (Fire Eye, 2013). For example, SEA published the
names of 11,000 names and passwords of opposition members in July 2012 (Reporters without Borders, 2013, p. 33) and
such information is sent to a computer address lying within Syrian government-controlled Internet protocol (IP) space for
intelligence collection and review (Fire Eye, 2013). Also, SEA hacked and stole valuable information fromTruecaller, Tango,
and Viber which are all free Internet messaging and telephone services that are widely used by Syrian opposition members
(Fire Eye, 2013).
It is important to note that most of SEAs attacks are directedagainst the social media channels of traditional media outlets
and as well as against Syrian oppositional websites and Facebook pages. This means that SEA is one of Assads international
media and propaganda tools because after the beginning of the rebellion it has become difcult for the Syrian government
to express its views to the world. There are numerous examples of SEAs hacking operations that were mostly directed
against Qatar, Saudi Arabia, USA, and the UK due to their political opposition to Assads regime. These attacks included
hacking Al-Jazeera mobile and sending false mobile texts claiming that the Prince of Qatar was subjected to an assassination
attempt (Associated Press, 2012). SEA also hacked the Facebook and Twitter accounts of Qatar Foundation in February 28,
2013 and posted messages indicating that Qatar supports terrorism (YouTube, 2013b). Tens of other media outlets like
the Washington Post, the New York Times, and The Onion or their Twitter accounts that belonged to the Associated Press,
NPR and Reuters were hacked by SEA. On the Associated Press Twitter account, SEA once wrote that the White House was
bombed and that Obama got injured which made the stock market drop (Fire Eye, 2013; Memmot, 2013; Scharr, 2013).
Further, one of the Twitter accounts that belong to BBC Weather was hacked by SEA that posted some sarcastic messages
like Earthquake warning for Qatar: Hamad Bin Khalifah about to exit vehicle to ridicule his former obesity or Hazardous
for warning for North Syria: Erdogan orders terrorists to launch chemical weapons at civilian areas (Deans, Plunkett, &
Halliday, 2013). Other SEA hacking operations included distributed denial of service (DDoS), phishing, and domain name
system(DNS) attacks with the case of the NewYork Times (Scharr, 2013).
SEAs phenomenon prompted similar reactions from other countries that are close to Bashar Assads regime such as
Algeria. For example, the Algerian Electronic Army appeared in 2013. On its Facebook page, a slogan similar to that used
424 A.K. Al-Rawi / Public Relations Review 40 (2014) 420428
by SEA is posted: Loyalty. . ..Sacrice. . .Commitment (The Algerian Electronic Army, 2013). Another hacking group was
created in 2013 called the Tunisian Cyber Army (TCA) (The Tunisian Cyber Army, 2013).
3
4. Theoretical framework
The theory used in this study is situated within the eld of online political public relations, but it is important rst to
discuss the basic concept of public relations that is relevant to this study. In their typology of public relations, James E. Grunig
and Todd Hunt (1984) introduced four public relations models including the press agentry and the two-way asymmetric
communications. The former is a one-way communicationwhereinnodialog withthe intendedaudience is requiredandthe
main objective is to put forward particular viewof the world through the media and other channels (Edwards, 2009, p. 150).
This can be connected to the Syrian Electronic Armys main method of addressing the public which is through its website
which does not contain any comments section. On the other hand, the aim of the two-way asymmetric communications
is to generate agreement between the organization and its publics by bringing them around to the organisations way
of thinking. Feedback from publics is used to adapt communications strategies to be more persuasive, not to alter the
organsations position (Edwards, 2009, p. 150). This is similar to propaganda as the organizations goal is to change only
its target public (Sha, 2007, p. 8) rather than itself which can be seen in SEAs use of its Twitter account, YouTube channels,
and Facebook pages wherein feedback fromthe public is sent but there are no changes in SEAs strategies.
In relation to political public relations, the concept refers to the management process by which an organization or
individual actor for political purposes, through purposeful communication and action, seeks to inuence and to establish,
build, and maintain benecial relationships and reputations with its key publics to help support its mission and achieve its
goals (Stromback & Kiousis, 2011, p. 8). In the case of SEA, I argue that it is used as a political public relations tool because
it helps the Assad regime in achieving some of its goals like building relationships and enhancing its reputation inside and
outside Syria, which are some of the main functions of public relations (Carroll & McCombs, 2003). In his discussion of the
image cultivation concept, Kunczik limits the goals of nation-state public relations efforts to improving the countrys image
abroad (Kunczik, 2003, p. 400), yet in the case of SEA, the national Syrian public is also a main target. This also corresponds
with Sriramesh and Vercics assertion that public relations does have an inuence in maintaining a particular political
system (2003, p. 5).
Theories on political public relations are rather newthough the practice is as old as history (Stromback & Kiousis, 2011).
There is also a clear overlap and convergence in the concepts with many other terms like public diplomacy (Signitzer &
Coombs, 1992). Copeland and Potter assert that public diplomacy is increasingly reliant on communication and information
technologies because they are regarded as a strategic asset that will play a more denitive role in determining the outcome
of conicts (Copeland & Potter, 2008, p. 279). In fact, mediated communication in public relations is regarded as tactical
in nature and is one of the three strategies used in public relations aside from interpersonal communication and social
activities (Sha, 2007, p. 9). Another overlap that exists is between political public relations and propaganda as early PR
theorists like Bernays, Lippman, and Lasswell admitted that persuasion and consequently propaganda are among the core
elements of public relations (Fawkes, 2009, p. 256). For example, the father of public relations, Bernays, once wrote that
public relations is built on three elements: informing people, persuading people, or integrating people with people (1952,
p. 12). In fact, public relations functions at different levels including what is termed as the ideological PR which is usually
run by a state government such as the case of the Consultancy Bell Pottinger company that won 2.3 million Pounds to
promote democracy in Iraq (LEtang, 2008, p. 19). This can be linked to SEA whose objective is to serve as an ideological PR
for the Syrian government.
Another dimension that is unique to this study is that SEA uses online public relations which involves the use of Internet
technologies to manage communications and to establish and maintain mutually benecial relationship between an orga-
nization and its key publics (Hallahan, 2004, p. 587). The traditional applications of online public relations include research,
dissemination of information, queries, crisis response, discussion and debate, and relationship building. As indicated above,
the latter is regarded as an ultimate purpose because it assists in enhancing positive reputations (as a prerequisite to
establishing positive relationships) (Hallahan, 2004, p. 591). One of the main reasons behind the use of online and digital
methods is that they have the potential for developing public relations with the publics on a larger basis (Lordan, 2001;
Sweetser, 2011, p. 309). As SEA uses cyber technologies, its goal is to assist in Syrian government in its ongoing conict by
broadening the potential support as much as possible. This study aims at answering the following research questions:
RQ1: What kind of online rhetoric and sentiments are predominantly used by the online public?
RQ2: What is the tone of the online reaction toward the videos posted by SEA on its three YouTube channels?
5. Method & results
For the purpose of this study, a webometric tool was used to mine the comments taken from three YouTube channels
(Thelwall, 2009): syrianes0

, syrianes1

, and SEAOfcialChannel. These three channels belong to SEA since its Facebook
3
On its Twitter page, TCA has 44 followers with a rst tweet on 23 June 2013.
A.K. Al-Rawi / Public Relations Review 40 (2014) 420428 425
page gets removed continuously as explained above, so YouTube has become the only source where SEAs videos and
accompanying comments are retained online. These three YouTube channels contain similar videos, but they are believed
to be created in order to archive SEAs activities in case one of the channels is removed. syrianes1

was the rst YouTube

channel created by SEA on May 11, 2011 (YouTube, 2011a). It had 225 videos, 4436 subscribers, and 1,535,068 views as
of January 6, 2014. The second YouTube channel is syrianes0

which was created on June 7, 2011. It had 285 videos, 2662

subscribers, and 1,100,823 views (YouTube, 2011c). Finally, SEAOfcialChannel had 42 videos, 218 subscribers, and 11,399
views and was created on April 9, 2013 (YouTube, 2013a).
Intotal, 536videos were minedon11December 2013whichhada total views of 2,622,126, a total of 35.33hours duration,
15,508 (47.5%) likes, and 17,093 (52.4%) dislikes. Amongst these videos, there were 134 ones with no comments, and the
rst video was posted on May 11, 2011, while the last one was posted on October 31, 2013. It is important to note that this
webometric tool has limitation in mining comments due to YouTube API regulations, so not all the comments were mined;
instead, the webometric tool mined 3019 comments that were content analyzed. The rst comment was posted on May 11,
2011while the last one that was minedwas postedonDecember 8, 2013. Fromthe identiedandself-proclaimedgeographic
locations of YouTube users, we nd, as expected, that the majority of commentators were fromSyria 32.4% (n=79), followed
by Saudi Arabia 27.5% (n=67), USA 13.5% (n=33), Pakistan 9.4% (n=23), Denmark 5.7% (n=18), and Canada 4.1% (n=10).
For the purposes of this study, all the comments that are written in Arabic, English, and Latinized Arabic were coded.
There were very a few comments written in other languages, so they were removed from the study because the coders
could not understand them. The rst phase of coding revealed that 21.4% (n=647) of the comments were either irrelevant or
cannot be understood. For the remaining 2368 comments, they were coded either as positive toward SEA and/or the Syrian
government, or negative toward SEA and/or the Syrian government, or neutral in the sense that the commentator does not
take a clear stance toward one of the sides and usually calls for calmand peace. Two coders who are native Arabic speakers
and uent in English coded 250 comments which was over 10% of the overall data investigated (Wimmer & Dominick, 1994,
p. 173). Cohens Kappa, which accounts for chance agreement, was employed since the data coded was nominal (Lombard,
Snyder-Duch, & Bracken, 2002), and the inter-coder agreement test produced an agreement of .744 which was substantial
(Landis &Koch, 1977). The coding of the remaining comments revealed that 71.9% (n=1703) of the comments were pro-SEA,
25.3% (n=601) were anti-SEA, and 2.7% (n=64) were neutral.
6. Discussion & conclusion
The results of the study showed that there were 47.5% likes and 52.4% dislikes for all the videos posted on SEAs three
YouTube channels. These gures reveal that there is a higher percentage of disapproval of SEAs videos mostly because of
its obvious link to the Syrian government. In all the videos, there is not a single one that seems neutral toward the conict
since all of the clips blatantly side with and back Assad and his policies during the ongoing conict. Yet, if we compare
the results of the manual coding of comments with the number and percentage of the videos likes and dislikes, we nd
a clear disparity which can be attributed to one possible explanation. The comments on SEAs YouTube channels are often
but not always moderated. This is also supported by a few comments that mentioned that their anti-Assads views were
removed. For example, one YouTuber who seemed to be an Arab who hacked SEAs website called, TestMode21, mentioned
the following: You still remove comments without responding. You attribute the hacking attempt [against SEAs website]
to the USA or Anonymous or whatever you imagine to cover your electronic defeat. . .. Another commentator, sary alsory,
said: What! Wheres democracy?. . ..Why do you remove the rebels comments?. Further, on SEAs Facebook pages that are
cited above, there were no anti-Assad or anti-SEAs comments which clearly indicate that the pages were always moderated
on Facebook.
To answer the rst research question: What kind of online rhetoric and sentiments are predominantly used by the online
public? The results of the comments analysis for the three YouTube channels run by SEA show a highly sectarian rhetoric
which involved exchanges among people from inside and outside the Arab world. The video that had the highest number
of views
4
showed a group of captive Syrian soldiers wearing civilian clothes being allegedly freed by Assads army. The clip
was taken from footage aired by the pro-Assad TV station, Al-Dunya, and most of the comments were mocking the lm
because of the allegedly fake production (YouTube, 2012c). This is followed by another video posted on the other channel
syrianes1

in which the famous Syrian female singer, Assalah Nasri, refers to the Syrian national anthem and is framed as
if she belittled it (YouTube, 2012b).
5
One YouTuber, Ali Ahmed, criticized Nasri saying: Youre vain. Go and practice sexual
jihad with your great youth. . ... The reference to sexual jihad is repeatedly used by pro-Assad commentators to discredit
opposing views. This was a controversial fatwa that was issued by some sala ultraorthodox Muslim sheikhs and was
rejected by the majority of Sunni imams that allows Muslim women to practice sex with the ghters as part of the efforts
of establishing an Islamic state (BBC, 2013). On the other hand, hundreds of other commentators who oppose Assad and
SEA often make references to Muttah which means pleasure marriage that is a derogatory termused by some Sunnis to
discredit the Shiite doctrine. The Alawite regime of Bashar Assad is regarded as an offshoot of Shiism, and the above term
suggests that some Shiites are born as a result of illegitimate marriages (Haeri, 1989).
4
It had over 870,000 views and over 1400 comments as of December 11, 2013 and was posted on syrianes1 channel.
5
The video had over 1,045,000 views and 1174 comments as of December 11, 2013.
426 A.K. Al-Rawi / Public Relations Review 40 (2014) 420428
Further, one of the other popular terms used in the comments was the word mule (Jahsh in Arabic) to refer to Bashar
Assad whose name (Assad) means lion in Arabic; the mule is associated with stupidity and dullness unlike the ferociousness
and bravery of the lion. For example, one YouTube user, kuwaitiCharisma, stated: Bashar the mule, your end is near by
Gods will, and another YouTuber, shajkk, said: God curse your soul Hafez for bringing this mule. Hes the excrement of
lion. Since the conict in Syria has had regional implications that several other countries like Lebanon and Iraq, there were
other political usages of the word Jahsh. For example, a Saudi lmproducer, Mohammed Al-Qahttani, announced his plan
to make Al-Jahsh lm to depict the villainy and violence practiced by the Assad family throughout their rule. The Saudi
lm is planned as a reaction to making an anti-Saudi lm called King of the Sands by the Syrian director, Najdat Anzour,
which was screened in several cinema theaters in Damascus and negatively depicted the life of King Saud of Saudi Arabia
(Al-Qudus Al-Arabi, 2013). Further, the self-proclaimed geographic locations of the comments also indicate that people from
different places inside and outside the Arab region are involved in the exchange of the sectarian language. As shown above,
SEA reacted against the website of many Arab countries whose political stances opposed that of Assads government. Yet,
various other hacking incidents were documented; for example, the website of the Iraqi Prime Minster, Nouri Maliki, was
defaced and hacked by a group calling themselves TeamKuwait Hackers who compared himto Bashar Assad because of
the Iraqi governments support for Assads regime. The statement posted on Malikis website mentioned: You want to be
like Bashar Assad . . . Bashar is over (Associated Press, 2013).
To answer the second research question: What is the tone of the online reaction toward the videos posted by SEA on
its three YouTube channels? The results of the study showed that the majority of the comments 71.9% (n=1703) were Pro-
SEA and/or pro-Assad. As mentioned earlier, there seems to be some kind of comments moderation. Most of these pro-SEA
comments were directedat praising the hacking operations andBashar Assads government. It is noteworthy to mentionthat
there is a clear support bySyrians livinginthe diaspora andmanyother non-SyrianArabs livingindifferent parts of the world.
This is also supported by the results of the geographic locations of the commentators. Amongst those sympathizers, there is
a clear sectarian afliation with SEA which is part of the Alawite Shiite regime of Assad. For example, Hussein Al-Zubaidi,
said: Be victorious Bashar; all Shiites are under your service, while ArmyShiaTeam, that seems to be another hacking
group called SEA heroes and urged them to continue their efforts. Other comments were directed at demeaning Sunni
Wahabis, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia due to their support for the Sunni rebels who are repeatedly accused of being terrorists,
agents for Israel and the US, and mercenaries. Other commentators like Samer Al-Tariq fromIraqs Karbala, harriwaltan from
Germany, and Djesami algerien fromAlgeria all praised SEAand encouraged it to continue based on sectarian or nationalistic
reasons.
Further, most of the Pro-SEA active commentators link the gure of Bashar Assad and his father Hafez with SEA. For
example, the YouTuber, salem mhnna, who seems to be a SEA member praises the group, saying: Were the eagles. . .our
hearts are solid. . .going forward without withdrawing. . ..Were the falcons of Assads Syria. In another post, he said: SEAs
Facebook page was shut down 169 times and this is the 169th. The process will continue. . ..Damn you, youll never pass
and Syria will never kneel. We remain resolved until the established victory. Also, there is a clear link made in the posts
between Syrias real army and its virtual one. For example, one YouTuber who seems to be a SEA member, sea Syria, says: If
you come on the ground. . ..or by sea. . .or by air. . .or on the net, you will be crushed and your dreams will be squashed with
it because we are more than you and are on the right side. In addition, sami mhnna, another YouTuber mentions: Let God
have mercy on the martyrs of the Arab Syrian Army, the doctrinal and electronic army. Interestingly, some of the statements
mentioned mimic those used by Anonymous in Style; for example, nahla ja, says: ImSyrian. . .Imunarmed. . .I resist. . .Im
the Syrian Electronic Army, while another YouTuber, SyrianLeaks2011, who appears to be a SEA member mentions: We
were not able to carry arms to protect our homeland, so we are here on this arena which is not less violent; we are certain
of victory. . ..
As for the anti-SEA and/or anti-Assad views, they constituted 25.3% of the total number of comments. Similar to the
pro-SEA comments, the language used against SEA and Assad is highly sectarian and full of curses and insults. For example,
one YouTuber, nasser35age, says: The killer [Assad] is immortal in Hells re. The day Syria sawyou, there was nothing good
but sectarianism and grudge. Another YouTuber, MRaboFaisal1, used a sectarian language: God curse you, Radah, and
above all you dead Hafez, the shitty. Here, Radah is one pejorative termgiven to Shiite by some salas. Other users (goog50
and Al Dharif) wondered why SEA and Syrias Assad asked help fromIran and Hezbollah to ght the rebels if they were truly
strong enough to defend Syria alone. Hezbollah which means (Gods Party) in Arabic is repeatedly termed as (Lats Party).
Here, Lat is a reference to one of the pre-Islamic polytheistic gods that Arabs used to worship and is intentionally replaced
here in order to discredit the doctrinal basis of the Shiite Hezbollah. Also, the Shabiha and Syrians with pro-Assad views are
often accused of being Irans proxies and are repeatedly called Bashars slaves or worshippers. Also, SEA is often mocked,
while the validity of its hacking operations is either belittled or questioned. For instance, the YouTube user, AbuAlhassanSy,
stated: Let the kids [SEA members] play around on the net, while the adults are busy on the ground until the corrupt regime
falls, while, sourihorr, another YouTuber said: This is the donkeys electronic army in reference to one of SEAs hacking
claims.
In relation to neutral comments, they constituted the lowest percentage (2.7%) as the majority of the comments were
highly polarized. These comments encouraged peace and understanding and neither praised nor denounced SEA. For exam-
ple, one YouTuber, a0562116637, condemnedthe violent language andsectarianrhetoric stating: Basedonthese comments,
I understand nowwhy we are labeled as Third World countries. Another YouTube user, abdul k hetar, said: By God, I feel
surprised by the kind of insults and curses I read. Is this the kind of moral standard held by the faithful Muslims?.
A.K. Al-Rawi / Public Relations Review 40 (2014) 420428 427
In conclusion, the case of the Syrian Electronic Army can be applied to the several other totalitarian regimes, possibly like
North Korea, that use cyber warriors as an online public relations tool either to steal information fromopposition groups or
hack websites and SNSs outlets aiming at creating an image of a sophisticated and undefeatable regime. This can be part of
the cyber war tactics that are used for offensive and defensive purposes. SEA effectively used cyberspace to defend, support,
and popularize the Assad regime, and some its strategies were unorthodox. It is crucial to mention here that SEAs case
remains unique due to the special circumstances that led to its creation. Stromback and Kiousis emphasize the importance
of examining the cultural, social, political, institutional, or systemic context (2011, p. 4) as well as the different beliefs,
values and attitudes and congurations of social, economic and political factors (Edwards & Hodges, 2011, p. 3) that all
play a major role in shaping the nature and goals of public relations efforts.
Further, the Syrian government uses cyber war is part of its tools to protect its own interests similar to other governments
around the world. SEA is one of Assads government means to attack vital targets in the cyber space that adds prestige and
enhances an image of a sophisticated regime that is able to create havoc in the West. This image has an impact on the public
relations efforts directed at the Syrianpublic in particular and the Arab and international public in general. The study showed
that SEA is a highly organized group of cyber warriors whose goal is to serve Bashar Assads government by either stealing
sensitive information for intelligence purposes that can help in combating the Syrian rebel groups or hacking the websites
of international media outlets or their social media channels in order to draw international attention to Assads cause. SEA
uses all the available tools at its disposal to spread the word on the activities of Assads Syrian army and to distort the image
of Syrian rebels which is similar to the general objectives of the ofcial Syrian media outlets. It is reasonable to think that
SEAs future will always be linked to the fate of Bashar Assad and his Baath government.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my wife. Dr. Alaa Al-Musalli, for her kind assistance in conducting this research study as she was
one of the coders in the pilot study.
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